Yeah - at five or six most people see the world simply. It's a binary world - good or bad; sweet or sour; light or dark; sleepy or awake; and other problems are simple.

As you get older, more options to almost any question you could be asked crop up...the stereotypical comment about the lesser of two evils was not made by a child - but rather by a rather disillusioned adult. The older you get, to a certain point, the more "shades of gray" you can see (not intended as a reference to any books of recent best seller status).

There are people who still see the world in black and white, unfortunately.

Speaking of contraception, I don't think I've mentioned this before - a friend of mine thought that she was safe from pregnancy while she was breastfeeding her firstborn. She was astonished when she got pregnant with Son #2 when Son #1 was less than a year old. She asked me "Did you know you could get pregnant while you're breastfeeding?" Bemused, I said "Uh, I never thought about it, but I would have thought it was possible, yes." "Oh. Well, I didn't."

(To be fair, my understanding is that breastfeeding makes it LESS likely for you to get pregnant - it's your body's way of trying to make sure you don't have too many babies too quickly. It's by no means foolproof, though.)

They actually tested this one reasonably recently. It works for the first six months provided that you feed the baby every six hours.

The weird thing is, my friend is one of the most intelligent people I know, but she is remarkably ignorant/na´ve about some fundamental things. The breastfeeding = contraception idea was just one of them.

She was a bit odd while she was pregnant with Son #2, but this might've just been baby brain - she was absolutely convinced that she was having a girl. She hadn't had an ultrasound or anything - she was just sure. Every time she referred to the baby, she said "she". She had only girls' names picked out. She started asking around for used baby girl clothes. When Son #2 was born, she was flabbergasted.

I read a book by Jared Diamond about tribal child care methods from around the world. When you have the baby strapped to your chest in a sling and do frequent small feeds almost constantly throughout the day, then the constant hormone stimulation caused by the feeding will act as a natural birthcontrol method until the child is weaned. However, more modern feeding schedules of a few big feeds every few hours doesn't cut it, you need constant little bursts to get the proper effect. So while it does theoretically work, you need to use "stone age" baby feeding schedules to achieve the effect.

The weird thing is, my friend is one of the most intelligent people I know, but she is remarkably ignorant/na´ve about some fundamental things. The breastfeeding = contraception idea was just one of them.

She was a bit odd while she was pregnant with Son #2, but this might've just been baby brain - she was absolutely convinced that she was having a girl. She hadn't had an ultrasound or anything - she was just sure. Every time she referred to the baby, she said "she". She had only girls' names picked out. She started asking around for used baby girl clothes. When Son #2 was born, she was flabbergasted.

I read a book by Jared Diamond about tribal child care methods from around the world. When you have the baby strapped to your chest in a sling and do frequent small feeds almost constantly throughout the day, then the constant hormone stimulation caused by the feeding will act as a natural birthcontrol method until the child is weaned. However, more modern feeding schedules of a few big feeds every few hours doesn't cut it, you need constant little bursts to get the proper effect. So while it does theoretically work, you need to use "stone age" baby feeding schedules to achieve the effect.

Inquiring minds would like to know if carrying a large stone or wood club is allowed

The weird thing is, my friend is one of the most intelligent people I know, but she is remarkably ignorant/na´ve about some fundamental things. The breastfeeding = contraception idea was just one of them.

She was a bit odd while she was pregnant with Son #2, but this might've just been baby brain - she was absolutely convinced that she was having a girl. She hadn't had an ultrasound or anything - she was just sure. Every time she referred to the baby, she said "she". She had only girls' names picked out. She started asking around for used baby girl clothes. When Son #2 was born, she was flabbergasted.

I read a book by Jared Diamond about tribal child care methods from around the world. When you have the baby strapped to your chest in a sling and do frequent small feeds almost constantly throughout the day, then the constant hormone stimulation caused by the feeding will act as a natural birthcontrol method until the child is weaned. However, more modern feeding schedules of a few big feeds every few hours doesn't cut it, you need constant little bursts to get the proper effect. So while it does theoretically work, you need to use "stone age" baby feeding schedules to achieve the effect.

Inquiring minds would like to know if carrying a large stone or wood club is allowed

We had a truck get stuck under an overpass somewhat nearby. They brought out the fire department and police and eventually had highway engineers out there trying to figure out how to get the truck out without causing more damage. The road was closed for HOURS and drew quite a crowd.

It was a 14 year old boy who solved the problem when he suggested they let some air out of the tires on the trailer.

Logged

It's not what we gather along the way that matters. It's what we scatter.

Several years ago, the maths department I was involved with was having an official photograph taken. They were worried, however, that all of the people who were going to be in the photo had glasses, but they didn't want to project a strong stereotypical "nerd" image and were concerned about the publicity. They were trying to think up people who wouldn't be out of place to include in the photo and struggled for ages to come up with anyone appropriate. I walked in on them after they'd been discussing it for over an hour, heard the dilemma, and asked, "Why don't some of you just take of your glasses for the duration of the photo?" The idea hadn't occurred to any of them.

"We had a truck get stuck under an overpass somewhat nearby. They brought out the fire department and police and eventually had highway engineers out there trying to figure out how to get the truck out without causing more damage. The road was closed for HOURS and drew quite a crowd.

It was a 14 year old boy who solved the problem when he suggested they let some air out of the tires on the trailer."

In a situation where a truck is stuck by mere inches, which would have to be the case if flattening the trailer tires would free it, why wouldn't the fire department just take ten minutes to saw the top of the trailer off with a safety saw (assuming that none of them had ever heard the logic problem somewhere else) or just pull it back out with a winch? And why in the world would an engineer be getting involved?

We had a truck get stuck under an overpass somewhat nearby. They brought out the fire department and police and eventually had highway engineers out there trying to figure out how to get the truck out without causing more damage. The road was closed for HOURS and drew quite a crowd.

It was a 14 year old boy who solved the problem when he suggested they let some air out of the tires on the trailer.

That's a really old story/puzzle that I've heard multiple times over many years. One of the characters in in the movie, Working Girl (1988) tells that story almost verbatim.

"We've had the engineers called to assess whether or not the bridge/overpass is still safe but not to figure out how to get the truck out."

That's where I was thinking with this. The only time I've ever seen an assessment that didn't wait until the mess was cleaned up was when a crash and fire compromised a pillar and they were concerned that extracting the wreck would cause a collapse.

Of course, the whole thing has me scratching my head because unless the truck driver backed up into the bridge, letting air out of the trailer tires wouldn't lower the end of the trailer that was stuck to begin with.

"We've had the engineers called to assess whether or not the bridge/overpass is still safe but not to figure out how to get the truck out."

That's where I was thinking with this. The only time I've ever seen an assessment that didn't wait until the mess was cleaned up was when a crash and fire compromised a pillar and they were concerned that extracting the wreck would cause a collapse.

Of course, the whole thing has me scratching my head because unless the truck driver backed up into the bridge, letting air out of the trailer tires wouldn't lower the end of the trailer that was stuck to begin with.

Virg

For the local truck eating bridges often times it's the rear end/trailer that gets caught. The drivers know how tall their cab is but forget that without a load their trailer is a little higher than normal. And sometimes the new trailer is taller than what they had ran with before.

"I feel sarcasm is the lowest form of wit." "It is so low, in fact, that Miss Manners feels sure you would not want to resort to it yourself, even in your own defense. We do not believe in retaliatory rudeness." Judith Martin

I just had a conversation with someone who had no idea that if you insert a toothpick (or knife, I usually use a knife) into the center of the cake and it comes out clean then the cake is done. She had no idea. She's baked cakes before. Even the boxed cakes, right on the box it says to insert a toothpick in the center and when it comes out clean it's done. I asked how she's been doing and she just said she put in for the longest time the box said and figured it'd be done when she pulled it out.